resident in the San Francisco office, is a member of the Public Finance Department. He has extensive experience in California land-secured public finance. He has served as bond counsel for cities, counties and special districts on many assessment districts and was bond counsel for the first landowner vote Mello-Roos Community Facilities District bond issue in northern California. He has long been a recognized authority on the Mello-Roos Community Facilities Act of 1982, frequently acting as a seminar panel member and he has drafted, or consulted on, many of the amendments to the Act. He is Chairman of the Legislative Subcommittee of CASTOFF, an industry group dealing with land-secured finance in California, and was primary draftsman of AB 373 (Wolk), the Mello-Roos clean-up bill signed by the Governor in 2007.

In his Mello-Roos practice, Mr. Bort also has represented many school districts and has helped to form, and has served as bond counsel for, several joint powers agencies. These agencies have included cities, counties, special districts and school districts, and have been an instrument for the cooperative use of the limited financing capacity of new development to intelligently mitigate its impacts on the infrastructure and facility needs of a variety of local governmental agencies.

Mr. Bort has served as counsel on many lease (certificates of participation) financings. He also has experience as counsel for pooled bonds under the Marks-Roos Local Bond Pooling Act of 1985 and for school district general obligation bonds, including those approved under Proposition 39 and by school facilities improvement districts (SFIDs).

Mr. Bort has been counsel for seven successful registered voter Mello-Roos bond issues -- four for libraries, two for open space and one for school facilities.

Prior to joining the firm in 1992, Mr. Bort practiced public finance for 10 years with the firm of Sturgis, Ness, Brunsell & Sperry in Emeryville. In 1997, Mr. Bort was asked to serve as general counsel of the headquarters organization of his religious denomination and its publishing arm. He returned to the firm in 2004.

Mr. Bort served in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for three years before attending law school. He commanded mapping operations in the Ogedon Desert of Ethiopia, and crowd control operations on the streets of Washington, D.C. during the "May Day" demonstrations of 1971. He left the service with the rank of Captain.

Good to know

Areas of Practice

1) Public Finance, 2) Assessment and Special Tax Bonds and Land Secured Financing, 3) General Obligation Bonds and 4) Lease Revenue and Certificates of Participation

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